Hospitality
by Ephemeral Glimpse
Summary: After a seemingly typical day of work, 22-year old Hinata Hyuuga rescues an abandoned cat off the streets, lovingly taking it as her own without much thought. However, she does not suspect the cat turning into anything else at night, much less into a human male by the name of Sasuke.
1. Enter and Escape

It had been the sort of day that was uneventful, the typical day where rain was common and the sun refused to shine, and yet the hour still marched tirelessly, nearing dark.

Hinata stepped out of the cold concrete building, where work composed of piles of papers and phone calls. She pushed the small metal appendage on the handle of her umbrella and shook it open. The raindrops were fat and flurried fast, and she quickly strode on the sidewalk on her way home. It was a burden holding onto her briefcase and her umbrella at the same time, but it was the sort of struggle that grew in accordance to your level of irritation, and so she kept calm about it. The route home was instinct to her feet, even though the persistence of rain added an obstacle to the course. Her 3-inch heels splashed and clacked against the sidewalk as it turned on the corner of Browning Avenue and Cove Street. She was nearing her destination when all of a sudden she heard a loud _meow _from the not-so-far distance_._

_Meow_

_Meow_

_Meow _

She turned her head to the source of the sound and laid her pale purple eyes upon a white cat. The cat was thoroughly drenched in the freezing rain, and looked downright disheartening. The poor creature was shivering while meowing in distress.

Hinata approached the cat and bent down to pick it up. She shifted her umbrella to her right hand and tucked the heavy briefcase underneath her right arm.

"_There there kitty kitty. Mommy's got you."_ She kissed the cat lovingly and hastened her steps towards her apartment home, not wanting to keep the cat neglected a second longer.

* * *

She had always desired to have a cat in her home and had been planning to visit the animal shelter for quite some time, though unfortunately the trip had always been pushed back in her daily planner. Now she was finally able to use some of the cat supplies she'd bought in preparation.

Hinata wrapped the cat in a bathroom towel and dried its fur the best she could. The cat meowed and licked its fur. Next, Hinata took out a plastic bowl from the dish rack and poured dry cat food into it. She clicked her tongue and called the cat over.

"_Here kitty kitty! Mommy's got food for you!" _

The cat jumped out of the couch and walked over to the food bowl.

"You're so smart! Yes you are!"

The cat sniffed it once and walked away, meowing curtly.

Hinata, visibly irritated, tried to pick the cat up by the stomach but the cat hissed and jumped away from her. Thank goodness it didn't tried to claw her.

"What? You'd rather starve?" Hinata sniffed, picking up the bowl.

The cat meowed and hissed again at her, this time with its claws fully extended.

"Oh right fine! Since you're so spoiled I'll cook up some fish for you." Hinata opened her freezer, a cool, icy air blowing past her, and took out a frozen pack of cod fish fillet from within the arctic depth. She lit up the stove and placed the pan on top, drizzling it with olive oil. The cat approached her and purred affectionately between her ankles, seemingly aware that she was cooking his preferred dinner and showing his gratitude.

"Alright, alright. Just wait for your meal kitty."

She tore up the plastic containing the fish, and placed two pieces in the pan. Once the fishes had cooked, Hinata transferred it on a small plate and bent down to place it on the floor, where the cat awaited to devour it. She also poured him a bowl of cold milk, and he licked it clean till the very last drop.

"You're one hungry cat, _kitty."_

The cat meowed as Hinata brushed his fur with her fingers.

"I suppose now I'd have to figure out where you'll sleep." After a couple of minutes rummaging in her closet, Hinata settled for her old luggage, a musty blanket, and an unused guest pillow. The cat watched curiously as she set up his makeshift bed for the night.

"This here kitty, would be your temporary bed until I buy a permanent one for you." She smoothened out the blanket over the pillow and patted it, indicating for the cat to enter. The cat only looked at her passively. Hinata stood up, at a loss, and shook her head. Her body had started to feel the weary effects of the long day, and she rather not contend with cuts from a cat if she dared pick it up again.

"Okay kitty, mommy's going to sleep now, and you'd better sleep too." She rubbed the cat's furry head briskly and went inside her bedroom, closing it for the night.

* * *

The meowing did not stop until Hinata opened her bedroom door at 2 in the morning. She had fallen asleep the moment her body had hit her bed and then suddenly loud, constant meowing from outside her room woke her up.

The cat looked up to her in a waiting position, his eyes glowing in the dark. She silently picked him up and placed him on her bed, then shut the door close. The cat curled himself up in a ball and rested comfortably in the foot of her bed, while Hinata pulled the blankets over herself tightly, wanting to enter the warm, welcoming cocoon of sleep once more. She was snoring in a minute, but the cat kept its eyes open and stared only at her.

The transformation was quick: a puff of air and a creaking sound due to the sudden shift of weight was all that indicated that the cat had turned into a human male. He could only transform in the dead of night and while at the midst of the girl. The door was a slight inconvenience he'd overlooked. He noted that he shall be in the bedroom _with _the girl the next time.

He didn't hesitate for a moment and placed his lips atop hers, hoping beyond hope that the heavy burden of the curse would disappear in that instant. But alas it was not so. His hope was indeed beyond hope and he desperately placed his lips on top of hers over and over again…but to no avail.

"_Damn it all!" _He softly cussed, wiping his mouth from the failure it had touched.

_I thought she would be the one. _

His temper burned hotly while he laid beside her underneath her sheets. He gazed at the girl overcome with fatigue, and then at the glass windows, contemplating his inevitable escape. Once daylight breaks he would be out of here in a flash, and the hunt for the next girl would resume. A quick, pulsating thought of kissing her again crossed his mind; maybe it had something to do with the way he kissed her, but he knew it wasn't it, she simply wasn't _the one _he'd been searching for. He really had betted his chances on this girl…

He calmed down enough to allow himself a few precious minutes of sleep, before slinking into the foggy, hazy-lit kiss of early morning—leaving the girl and leaving his only hope.

* * *

**A/N: **So what did you guys think? I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments on this new SasuHina story that had struck me. I hope you enjoyed chapter one!

**_*Cover art image used belongs to Katy Betz_**


	2. The Red String of Fate

Hinata looked listlessly towards the big glass wall besides her work cubicle, her chin rested at the cup of her hand.

The clock on her desk was a pink Hello Kitty brand, and the hour hand has stopped at the number three. It was the hour of choice for most employees to take their coffee breaks for a needed caffeine rush, or to mingle in the worker's lounge—conversing casually or flirting indiscriminately with fellow coworkers.

She finally took her eyes off the traffic jam at busy Cove Street and placed them blankly at the numerous desktop icons in her computer screen.

All that has possessed her thoughts since three days ago was her missing cat: _kitty…_ The rest had been habitual and robotic blur at work and at home.

She had been really attached to the fur ball for some reason, given the small time that she had been together with it. The mysterious and abrupt disappearance of _kitty_ had plagued her mind with so many questions. Among them were:

_Where could he have gone? Did he think of me as a bad possible owner? I swear I didn't even open the windows! I was going to love him forever! Was it the crappy cat bed? I was going to buy him a new one!_

Try as she might, with layers of missing posters and countless trips to the back alleys, the cat had seemingly vanished into thin air…

_Leaving her. _

She did not resurface from her troubled thoughts until a steaming mug of sweetened coffee was placed in front of her line of vision. The dark, roasted coffee bean smell penetrated her olfactory senses, and she picked up the slight hazelnut coffee creamer added into it.

She loved adding the hazelnut coffee creamer in her cup of Joe.

Hinata, surprised, looked up at the man who placed the coffee with hazelnut coffee creamer in her desk.

"_Hello Ms. Hyuuga, nice to formally make your acquaintance."_ He held out a hand for her to shake and her heart jumped in her chest.

"Mr. Uchiha! N-Nice to make your acquaintance as w-well!" She stood up in her chair swiftly and grabbed his extended hand, weakly shaking it.

_Why does the CEO's son know me, and why is he here?!_

Beads of sweat emerged in her pale skin as the realization of his position began to dig deeper and deeper in her mind. She withdrew her hand quickly, in fear of exchanging her unworthy moisture in his hallowed palm.

_I kinda want to keep this job… _

"I hope you like coffee. I threw in some of the sweet stuff if you don't mind. You look like the type to be sweet."

"_Err… N-No, I don't mind at all…"_

Was the CEO's son actually…_flirting_ with _her? _

She threw the idea away faster than she'd thrown anything in her life.

"S-Sir… To what do I owe this pleasure?"

He parted his lips ever so slightly, tilting the cup of coffee in his hand and resting it between the hollow of his lips. Her eyes were hypnotized by his lips, and the pupils of her pale eyes dilated—capturing her soft lavender irises in a circle of darkness.

She instinctively touched her own lips by the tip of her finger.

"This might sound a little too off kilter for our first topic of conversation, but I want to pose this question to you: _do you believe in the red string of fate?" _He easily asked the question, with velvety smooth delivery—no bumps, no qualms.

He took a long gulp of his coffee; his Adam's apple bobbing slightly at the flow of warm liquid entering his throat.

She caught herself staring again and trembled a little as she started: _"Umm…well in a sense I do… I believe that if a person is fated to be with you, then you'd always be connected somehow, even if it is the tiniest of circumstance."_ Hinata self-consciously tucked back a piece of falling hair from her bun, careful to look away from the stony gaze of the Uchiha.

He nodded vaguely after a long pause. The silent response seemed to be equivalent to a grenade being thrown to her face.

_Did I answer right? What could he be possibly thinking right now?! _

She swallowed back her saliva, drying the cavern of her mouth, and cursed her love of shoujo manga. She had read one too many of the sort and now she blames them for her insufficient and illogic statement.

_He probably thinks I'm some hopeless romantic; drawing my fantasies of love from high school girls' manga._

It was a truth that was undeniable to her.

"Please enjoy the coffee. It's a special brew of my own."

The coffee had slipped from her mind momentarily, and now thirsting desperately, she grabbed the mug with both her hands and gulped every drop down in her mouth.

Hinata wiped her lips with her sleeve, and felt a sudden tingle in her stomach. She touched her belly, afraid that it was some disturbance in her bowel movements, and that some unwanted noise would erupt.

His dark gaze was once again upon her, and lowered some to the coffee in her hands.

"I guess then, Ms. Hyuuga that it won't surprise you that I believe our fates are tied by the red string of fate."

"_W-What do you mean?"_ she whispered uneasily. Her voice was cracking dangerously into the higher pitches—a testimony of the many embarrassments of her childhood.

"Well it's simple: we are _inseparable."_

Hinata didn't speak, not even finding her voice to whimper.

_Isn't this a little too much for just having been acquainted?_

Like someone had fired a pistol in the air, Hinata's body reacted rapidly, placing a significant amount of distance between him and her in record time.

"_I-If you would p-please excuse me!" _she chirped, heading towards the elevator door.

_If he thinks this is some brilliant way of picking up innocent girls, then he's got some nerve! _

Just as she reached the elevator, the doors slid open, and she entered, pressing the ground floor button.

Hinata went straight home afterwards.

* * *

He smiled a little at the petite Hyuuga's figure, her back turned to him in defiance. He placed his coffee mug down in her desk, and looked at an old, faded family picture, framed in a steel fashioned as trees on the sides.

Hinata was the black sheep of the Hyuuga clan, a fact brushed under the rug to maintain face to the Hyuuga clan. She had personally proclaimed her desire to be severed from one of the most ancient and esteemed family in Japan, and had since then eked out a small living of her own, stripped of any rights to royalty.

Of course the Uchiha clan knew, she worked for him after all.

_Still the blood runs thick… _

He placed the photo frame back to its original position.

After three days of leaving her, during his attempt at a fruitless hunt for the one to break his curse, he had noticed the Hyuuga girl frantically putting up posters for a missing cat: _him, _by accident_._

It had been an epiphany moment—to see her sweat fall to the ground, and the air escaping her lips as she panted, tacking posters here and there for a white _kitty_.

_Call this number or message this email, and collect this reward…_

He couldn't quite wrap his head at the idea of this girl getting so worried over some cat she just met. Not only did he became more fascinated with the enigma that was her, but their seemed to be an attraction that pulled him towards the Hyuuga—_an inescapable sort:_

The red string of fate_, _bounding them tightly once she welcomed him into her home that rainy night.

_Try as we might, this red string of ours have sealed our fates… Does this mean the curse will be broken through you? _

Having finished his cup of coffee, the last diminishing dose of his potion began to wear out. A cup gives him an hour of retaining his human form, and any more than a cup's dose would have him cold and dead on the spot.

He walked towards the elevator, watched the doors open, and pressed the ground floor button.

Sasuke would be going straight to her home.

_Home sweet home, dear Hyuuga._

* * *

**A/N: **I hope you all enjoyed chapter two! I especially appreciate reading your thoughts, comments, and critiques on the review section.

I was greatly pleased on the positive feedback from chapter one, so thank you all very much to those that dropped a message! You guys are awesome!


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